Abstract
As is the case in any country there is a constant search to improve the mathematics offerings presented to school-goers in South Africa. The activity surrounding this search was intensified after the attainment of democracy. The primary aim of this search was to establish a mathematics curriculum that would result in productive learning and the mastery of the goals set for the curriculum. These goals are predetermined and are embedded within the country’s ideological intent of its school educational endeavors. Explicitly it is stated that school education should be a mechanism to contribute towards the development of “a participating citizen in a developing democracy [who has] a critical stance with regard to mathematical arguments presented in the media and other platforms” (South African Department of Education, 2003, p. 9). This goal was already proffered during the struggle for liberation against apartheid and encapsulated in the alternative school mathematics program during the latter periods of that struggle. The alternative mathematics curricular movement found expression in People’s Mathematics (PM). People’s Mathematics was an independent development in South Africa during a particular historical moment but shared commonalities with the varieties of Critical Mathematics Education (Skovsmose, 1994; Frankenstein, 1989). It differed from other varieties in that it adopted the stance of critique but also emphasized action against those practices which inhibit human possibility
